Promoting sales of forestry machinery control systems

We have been cooperating with Technion since 2017. The characteristics of outsourced marketing are a dynamic and flexible way of working according to the customer’s needs. Our work with Technion includes content production, website updates, translations, and graphical material production. The larger projects have been linked to productization, such as product information and document management development. One concrete result is an implemented product search function for the website.

Ease and reachability as a steppingstone

Outsourced marketing is a continuous service, which includes an agreed amount of work per month. Good planning reaches far, but sometimes the situation and needs change fast, which is why flexibility and expediency steer our everyday work. If needed, we execute the tasks with a customized timetable. “We meet up with Mathias and Meri from Smartbutlers a few times yearly and plan what’s to come. However, we mainly collaborate through emails, phone calls and web meetings. The character of the marketing know-how we need keeps changing, which is why Smartbutlers’ concept where we can get help with everything from translations to video production has been a functional solution for us”, sales manager Toni Lomakka from Technion describes.

Technion has customers in almost every continent. Therefore, fast reachability and reaction are important. Functional communication and keeping in touch are the basics of cooperation. It is important to get to know the customer well, so that communications in both directions feels natural. This way meetings are usually relaxed and all partners can bring up their ideas freely.

Videos as a productization enhancer

One of the most interesting common projects is the guide and feature introducing videos that introduce Technion’s XCrane product family. XCrane is a control system for forestry cranes. In the videos, the features and customer benefits of the basic XCrane, XCrane PLUS and XCrane PRO systems are introduced. When producing the videos, we utilized Technion’s mobile XCrane system, which works with the Farming Simulator. Apart from the simulator videos, still images of the XCrane screen and system are used as well as animations to help follow the videos. Mathias, who was in charge of the project, describes the project like this:

“The project was extremely interesting. The challenge was to internalize industry terminology and the operating logic of the machines and applications. I would describe the videos as living manuals that give the customer a realistic image of how the control system adjustments affect the crane operations. With these videos we can conveniently guide users despite distance and improve customers’ user experience”.